I have a 86 TA that i am going to be putting more mods on and i need to either get my tranny rebuilt or get a new one. If i get a new one should i just stick with the 700R4 or get a 5spd? I can get a 5spd for $1000 and inclueds everything needed to bolt right in and go. I dont know what i should do! What do you guys/gals think i should do?

 

What do you plan on doing with the car. Daily driver, Drag racing, Autocross, ect?

 

I plan on keeping it a daily driver/stoplight racing/every once and a while go down to the track car. lol I want performance but i need it as my daily driver cuz i love drivin it!

 

Well, in that case its just personal preference. Autos are generally better for drag racing, but if your like me and like to shift gears yourself its up to you. BTW what kind of 5-speed?

 

its a WC-T5 i think

 

dont bother with a chevy 5 speed, they all blow,

get a t56 and solve your problems, plus that extra OD is nice.


adam

 

Stick with the 700r4, going to manual isnt as easy as it seems. You need a lot more things than just the tranny. Clutch, slave cylinder, pedal, etc. Besides autos are better for drag racing and if you dont plan on autocrossing the car than stick with the auto.

 

a manual car would be alot more streetable in its wilder forms, i would much rather run 10s through a stick than through an auto in a street car.


adam

 

i have decided to stick with the 700R4. I figure where i live its all traffic if you want to go anywhere and i dont want to have to drive a clutch in traffic! Thanks for the replys!

 

do any of your friends have really fast autos?

try driving a 4000 stall in traffic, that might even out the odds, because most of the time to go fast in an auto, you have to get a high stall, and those things are a pain on the street.


adam

 

Ummm no. Do you consider streetable breaking rear ends and trannys and burning up clutches? If so then yeah, i guess you could say a manual would be more streetable in a 10 second car.

 

A 4000 lock up stall would be just fine for the street. It's not like the car doesn't move until 4000 rpms. It just slips a little until the converter locks up. A 4000 stall is very streetable in my opinion. Also, another thing to consider is if you ever plan on doing any kind of bracket racing or launching on slicks without some type of expensive built rear then manual is out of the question.

 

The manual vs. auto debate will never end......but don't count out the 5 speed.

If you get a T5 in GOOD shape, if you know how to drive, they will last. If you plan on 4000RPM clutch dumps and trying to speed shift it, then keep the auto.

As for power.....it's a FACT of physics...the manual ( with functioning clutch etc ) will ALWAYS put more power to the GROUND than an automatic. A DIRECT / mechanical connection transferring torque is ALWAYS more efficient than a hydraulic coupling ( torque converter ).


Yes, you need more than just the 5 speed to swap, but it's not that bad at all. I JUST did this swap last Wednesday. Now I DID install the pedals ahead of time, and with taking out the driver's seats for easier access, cutting the holes for the master cylinder, taking out old pedals, installing new pedals, removing upper and lower consoles, and installing hydraulics, it would have taken about 3-4 hours if I'd have been able to work on it straight through and not have to stop for different reasons.

The ACTUAL tranny swap happened on Wed. I started at 9am by getting the car on jackstands. I took my first test drive around midnight.

I did this BY MYSELF. This includes pulling the auto out, removing the flexplate, installing the pilot bearing and flywheel, clutch presure plate etc.......then having to make THREE runs to the parts store. One for brake fluid, one for a starter, and one for a couple of bolts.......I took MORE Than a few breaks as well. This also includes cleaning up, putting tools up, then going in to take a shower, THEN coming out for the 1st drive.

If I had ALL the parts ahead of time, and worked straight through, it's an EASY 8 hour job.

Driving the car is LOADS more fun, and I HAVE total control, not to mention the World Class tranny I scored from a '92 Z has the .63 overdrive. My mileage, EVEN with wrapping the gears damn near everytime, jumped 2-3 mpg on this tank.

As for drag racing.....manuals ALWAYS have higher trap speeds than autos as they put more of the flywheel HP to the ground.

AND as far as consistency, it's ALL on the driver.......

NOW for $1000, I'd pass on the 5 speed. I have right at $650 in my ENTIRE swap, including:

- WC T5
- Bellhousing and clutch fork
- Flywheel
- Pilot bearing
- Clutch kit
- Hydraulics
- Pedals
- Switches
- 5 speed console plate
- Bolts / nuts
- Synthetic Mobil 1 ATF
- Shifter and handle
- Torque Arm mount
- Speedo adapter and gears
- NEW manual tranny starter


Now I do plan on going to a T56 after I get the next motor finished. It'll be a roller 383.

As for now, my 350 TPI is lightly modded. By the Fall, I'll be pushing an easy 300-330 HP to the flywheel ( and gobs more torque ) and after tuning my own chip, I'm confident of 12 second ET's.

This is my EVERYDAY Driver as well.


Also, it's a ALOT easier to change a clutch than it is to change a torque converter or remove and rebuild an auto.

I can have the manual tranny out in less than a hour.


HTH

 

Trap speeds mean little when it comes to drag racing. What matters is ET and as far as that goes a correctly setup auto will always outlaunch a correctly setup manual tranny meaning better ET's. It is very hard to be consistent with a manual where as an auto will virtually always perform the same. Now about the manual being better as far as direct drive that is true except when the auto has a locking torque converter, but that again is part of the manual's downfall. It will simply tear parts up due to the extreme shock it puts on the driveline. They both have their advantages and disadvantages for certain applications. If I was going to drag race I would choose an auto. If I was going to road race I would choose a manual. As far as daily driving goes I would have to pick an auto, but that is mostly opinion.

 

Okay, I gotta call BS on the "auto will always be more consistent" at the strip.

AGAIN......that's ALL IN THE DRIVER.

I've been driving stick shift cars all my life, so maybe it's just my opinion.....

BUT......put 2 IDENTICAL cars side by side with one auto one manual, and a GOOD driver will beat the AUTO w/ the stick EVERYTIME!!

Extreme shock on the driveline?

Again, knowing how to shift without breaking stuff helps. When someone can really drive a stick at the strip, you can't even really tell it's a stick shift just by watching the run......


Ever heard of Ronnie Sox? I'll NEVER forget him showing up at a track in CA while some of the "hot shoe" journalists were testing out a brand new 6 pack RoadRunner, one was auto, one was stick. They were saying how the 4 speed car wouldn't hook, and the auto was so much quicker.....

So he takes the 4 speed car and beats their best time in the auto car by damn near a half second...

The consistency of a manual tranny car is SOLEY up to the driver. The consistency of a auto tranny car is up to the shift kit, the valvebody, the converter, and then the driver.

And real world? How about at my local track a couple of years ago, a guy had a brand new BONE STOCK LS1 Formula w/ the T56, and his buddy had a slightly modded Auto LS1 Formula, and the guy with the M6 was crying about how much quicker the auto was.......my buddy bet him $100 that I could take the stick car and beat the owner's best time.....he took the bet, then decided to tell me about it.....

After 3 runs to get a feel for how the car liked to be launched, I ran a time almost .4 tenths better than the owner, and he had made close to 20 passes in the car. Oh......the auto LS1? Beat him by a half car when we grudged race the last run of the night....


It's all about who's shifting the gears......not the gears themselves.

YMMV

 

like i said, a properly setup auto will always outlaunch a stick car and yes autos are way more consistant. I don't care how good of a driver anyone is. That fact is undeniable. I'm realy tired of people saying ever heard of such and such or so and so ran this and that. Who cares, you arent him, I'm not him. The average driver isnt great. The average drive is just that, average. 9 times out of 10, a properly setup auto will always beat the stick car and all 10 of those times the auto will run similar times. By the way, while you are sitting there trying to outlaunch a converter car, which is almost impossible, you better have a lot of money and some spare trannys and rears.

 

Tell ya what.......


You bring your auto car to the track in Dinwiddie and I'll bring my manual car......

Fair enough?


And why replace the tranny? I slip the clutch off the line, and on a good launch, it damn near bogs.......that's when you get the best 60ft times.......

 

Thats cool, I will be there as soon as I get done installing these mods. By the way, you aren't the guy with the red IROC that happened to give me a pen to fill out the form last time I went are you?

 

Yeah !!!!!!!!

You and your Dad were the one's in that clean *** RS w/ the steel cowl hood?!?!

NICE FRIGGIN CAR!!!!

I haven't run my car since.....having to let off the gas to get the 700 to shift to 3rd sucked :P


Hey, you know anybody needing parts? I'm parting a NICE 87 IROC that got smashed......only thing I'm keeping is the SS fiberglass hood......TPI, 700 tranny in VGC, interior, (3) good gold iroc rims, suspension etc......


Now I know your car will smoke my ***, since I'm still running the TPI 350, but it'll be fun playing the first 60 feet.......

Although I do have street tires and no posi........you bring street tires and we'll call it even



Small friggin' world ain't it?

 

Naw man, that wasn't me. I was in a blue 2000 z28. I was hopin you were the one who gave me the pen to use cause I wanted to say thanks. You go to Dinwidee often? I'll prolly be there in the next 2 weeks after I get all my mods put on. By the way, was the RS you're talking about purple?

 

Yeah......pretty sure it was. Big cowl hood, MEAN Exhaust note.....

And it still might have been me.....

when was this? I've only run the IROC once, cause of the slushbox.........it was around Sept of last year on a Friday T&T.

Let me know when you're going and I'll try to make it out. My only issue now, is the fact my computer not only thinks I have a 305 w/' 19lb injectors, now it's having fits trying to idle sometimes after the 5 speed swap. I expected this, and time permitting I'm going to swap in the later 165 ECM w/ a custom burned '89 350 /6 spd Vette chip......



Later
Chris

 

I know that guy. That is one sweet car. It's a 92 RS with a 406 small block that runs 11.7 off the juice and 10.7 on it. He was running 14.6's with the 305 tbi. The time I was talking about was the first friday that Dinwidee was open this year. Hell yeah man, I will definitely let you know when I'm gonna go down there. We should meet up and talk for a while. It's nice to meet a fellow Dinwidee racer on here.

 

I race at Dinwiddie as well.
If you look at all my slips, you'd think I was driving an auto, since they are all so close.
I am hoping to have my car up and running next week since I just received a notice from the city that I need to have my car either moved or running by the 11th of this month.
I'ts been sitting in the driveway for 12 months now.

I'll be running an LT1 with 4L60E until I can afford a T56. This will be the first time I've driven any powerful V8 auto, everything else has been a 6 speed.

 

When you goin back to Dinwidee? Let me know cause I would like to meet up and chat with all the Dinwidee racers on the board. I think that would be pretty cool.

 

Automatics are boring to me. As far as Im concerned, anyone can get behind the wheel of an automatic and go down the track consistently, especially if they have delay boxes and stuff.

All there is to driving an automatic car is:

- Hit the gas and hold it to the floor
- If you have a delay box, hit the button at the appropriate time, or release the brake manually when its time to go
- Steer
- Move the shift lever to the next "range" as u go down the track when the shift light comes on
- Cross the finish line

Stick car???

- Stage
- Engage the line lock (if you have one)
- Bring yor RPM up to your desired launch RPM or up against your two-step
- When its time to go, either dump the clutch (if your car hooks good) or slide the clutch out to get going (if you were too cheap to buy suspension parts and tires to make your car hook)
- Steer the car
- Shift when the shift light comes on. If you power-shift, good. If you granny-shift, learn to drive! Also, be mindful to keep the car straight after the shift. Sometimes things can get a little hairy on the shifts.
- Repeat the afore mentioned step TWO MORE TIMES!
- Cross the finish

I personally enjoy going through all the hassle of driving a stick. True sticks are harder on driveline parts, but isnt it a good idea to make sure that you have upgraded your driveline parts to handle the increased torque from that nice fresh engine that you just built/bought/stole? Heheh...

If sticks are not faster than automatics, then why does NHRA penalize stick cars? Why do they frown against clutchless transmissions? Sure a clutchless may be too much of an advantage but its still a MANUAL TRANSMISSION! Isnt an automatic essentially a "NO CLUTCH NEEDED TO SHIFT" transmission? Where is the difference aside from less parasitic loss in the manual and the fact that sticks keep your engine in the sweet spot better than automatics?

Sure the potential for consistency is higher with an automatic, but wouldnt you feel better if someone said "DAMN YOU CAN DRIVE THAT STICK CAR" as opposed to "DAMN THAT AUTOMATIC IS CONSISTENT". I prefer the first statement.

I like driving sticks. PERIOD!

:lala:

 

Maybe this month, but definately next month.

 

I dont know why you just said what you said, but thank you. You just backed up everything I said. By the way. a clutchless manual is also known as an automatic, lol. Drag racers use them because true drag racing is all about consistancy and sticks just arent consistant because of what you just said. Too many variables. Thanks man!

 

I wasnt trying to help your statement but youre welcome .

A good driver with a stick CAN be consistent too!